Robert Mercer Debate Challenge

Last updated: 12/24/01

Background

On November 25, 2001, I posted an update to my Myths page,
in which I debunked the popular Trekkie myth that frequency matching (as
a defensive Borg technique and an offensive Federation technique)
should be applied to all sci-fi series, ie- a Federation ship can
blast through an ISD's shields if they figure out the frequency.
Shortly afterwards, I was informed that some of my detractors on the
"vs" forums at spacebattles.com had posted critiques of its
content. It should be noted that the "vs" forums have long
been full of people who absolutely hate this site, and anyone
who mentions my name is literally shouted down and derided for taking
anything I say seriously (I've had enough pieces of spacebattles.com
flame forwarded to me that I know this to be fact rather than
rumour).

On December 2, I responded to their critique of my page by writing
a critique of their critique. That seemed fair enough to me, but they
apparently didn't think so. Two days later, Chris O'Farrell posted
the following about me:

"Rather then contact me or try and debate with me,
he runs to his own safe and secure site and posts his opinions abuot
me and Goth without having the courage to even TRY to debate it with
me or Goth."

Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I call that "throwing
down the gauntlet". Never mind that critiquing someone's
arguments from afar rather than directly via E-mail is precisely
what they've been relentlessly doing to me for more than a year; it's
apparently an act of cowardice for me to return the favour. Anyone
who knows me will attest that I don't take accusations of cowardice
lying down, so on the same night I heard about this, I immediately
responded with the following challenge:

It has come to my attention that some of the
spacebattles.com babies are taking time out from their usual
activities of sniping at me from the safety of their
friendly-moderated forums, and they're calling me a coward for
criticizing them on my site rather than going to their moderated
forum and singlehandedly taking on a gaggle of them at once. I fail
to see how my reluctance to engage in such an obviously weighted
activity constitutes cowardice (particularly in light of the rapid
responses expected in discussion boards and my heavy schedule; how
many of them have two kids to raise?), but I don't like being
called a coward. Therefore, I am picking up this thrown gauntlet as
of right now. To my spacebattles.com hecklers' gallery: grow a pair
of testicles and appoint a champion. Let him and I agree upon a
particular subject of debate. We will then hold a formal debate via
E-mail, which he or she can post on spacebattles.com, and which I
will also post on my own site. You've talked the talk, now walk the
walk.

By the way, for the record, I would like to remind SBers
that I do recognize the fact that there are people at
spacebattles.com who either disagree with the group to which I am
referring, or don't give a damn about them one way or another. I use
the term "spacebattles.com babies" because that's where
they've chosen to camp, not because I think every one of you is like
them.

For four days, I heard nothing ... from them. However, I
heard a lot of things from others. Ted Collins E-mailed me
early the next morning to say that my challenge generated more than
five pages of activity in the first night, and LordChaos (a forum
mod) E-mailed later that same morning to say that the thread
revolving around my challenge was already up to over 160 posts! Yet
in all this activity, not one word was sent to me. I was told
that they were practically stumbling over themselves in their haste
to make up excuses for not answering my challenge, and that the
people who were most dismissive of my activities (Alyeska, E1701,
Chris O'Farrell) were the least interested in taking up the
challenge. I decided to challenge them again:

It's pretty obvious to me what's happening. Either that's
the smell of chicken in the air, or they're huddled together
trying to figure out a set of debate rules which will give them
maximum advantage. Pussies ... I made my challenge without having to
confer with anyone, yet they're probably going to hold their little
Trekkie clubhouse meetings for days until they figure out which nit
they're going to pick on my site, and which rules of evidence they're
going to graciously "allow" (all of which they will then
presumably dictate to me rather than negotiating). I suppose this is
my fault, for not being specific enough in my challenge. Very well, I
will try to make it simpler for everyone concerned, by letting them
know what I expect in advance:

Subject matter: since
they have been relentlessly attacking my site since before I even
knew they existed, it seems only reasonable that the subject of
debate should be the subject of my site. My site claims that the
Empire could effortlessly crush the Federation in a war, and almost
all of its arguments relate to that central theme. They obviously
disagree, so let them attempt to show why the Empire would not crush
the Federation in a war. I'm not about to let them cop out and turn
this into some kind of Trek trivia game, eg- a debate about how
multi-phasic shields work. They know, I know, and everybody else
knows what the heart of our disagreement is, and nitpicking around
the periphery would be a waste of time.

Canon rules:
Wayne Poe tells me that they're already running around complaining
about the differing rules for inclusion of canon material between
Paramount and Lucasfilms (you'd think they'd be negotiating these
terms with me instead of each other). Very well, let them know that I
don't give a damn. Include the TM, don't include the TM, whatever.
Just make up your minds!

Limits: this thing has to have
a start, an end, and a quick pace, otherwise it will simply drag on
until onlookers lose all interest. My suggestions: each man gets five
posts. Each man has two full evenings to respond to the other man's
post, otherwise he forfeits (eg- if I send a post at midnight on
Monday, he has Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening, so I must have
his answer by Thursday morning, at which point I will have Thursday
evening and Friday evening to respond).

Verbosity: Out
of courtesy for the reader, each man should make a reasonable effort
to limit the length of his posts (no unnecessary expansion of simple
ideas; Gothmog, I'm looking at you).

Evidence: Sources
must be explained. If you base your argument upon an episode, you
must state what happened in that episode and how it supports your
point, rather than something vague like "we know the Borg can
adapt to anything because that's what they did in "Q
Who"".

Order of battle: My opponent should
send the first salvo. They will complain that this gives me the last
word, but we all know that's meaningless since they will have all
eternity to blast away at my "last word" in their forums.
Frankly, I see no alternative, since the whole argument is about
their claims that my site is invalid, so they should obviously start
the debate by saying why my site is invalid, rather than me simply
reiterating my longstanding position.

Finally, after posting this second challenge, I got a response,
but not from any of the Trekkies in question. It was from Adam
Gehrls, who admitted up front that "I am not a Trekkie. I do not
like trek, I do not intend to debate it" and "I do not care
if I win or lose". I believe him when he says he was just doing
it for kicks and not deliberately trying to cause problems, but the
Trekkies actually agreed to let him do it, even though they
knew he wasn't one of them! I saw this as exceptional cowardice on
their part. I wanted to debate one of them, so I baited them a
third time:

Very cute, guys. You have now proven beyond a reasonable
doubt that you are a bunch of babies, by letting Adam Gehrls
accept the challenge on your behalf. He E-mailed me saying that he
wanted to accept on your behalf just for kicks, and because no one
else seemed ready to go through with it (is that the smell of chicken
in the air? I think it is!). However, he admitted up front that "I
do not care if I win or lose!" Nice trick; you get to pretend
that you accepted the challenge, and you get me to waste my time
debating someone who admits he doesn't care, so that if and when he
either loses or concedes the point, you simply get to shake off the
loss, saying that your "champion's" heart wasn't in it
anyway. This is pathetic; I want to face off against one of your star
players, not somebody who's just passing through and who doesn't care
one way or another. If you people absolutely insist on letting him be
your "champion" I will go through with it, but bear in mind
that your use of a disinterested proxy debater will be absolute,
irrefutable proof of your abject cowardice.

Finally, I got a response from Gothmog (I also got some
interesting E-mail from Chris O'Farrell, alternately baiting me and
trying to be nice to me, but he was yesterday's news as far as I was
concerned because Gothmog was now standing front and centre), so I
posted another update, putting an end to the drama and laying the
groundwork for the debate which Chris O'Farrell accused me of being
too cowardly to undertake.

When Chris O'Farrell accused me of cowardice on December
4 for not going to their forum and taking them all on at once, I took
that as an incitement to immediate action (notice how the attack came
against my character rather than the technical points I made in my
rebuttal; apparently, this is quite common on that board). Much
weaselling followed, as everyone seemed to find excuses not to answer
my challenge. But finally, perhaps stung by my criticism of their
decision to step back and let a bystander take me on, Gothmog stepped
up and accepted the challenge (of course, Chris O'Farrell himself
demurred).

Gothmog says he is willing to debate, and we will
start discussing terms. In fairness, I must note that unlike Chris
(never mind the rest of the board, which has apparently been howling
about my timing, as if I decided when Chris would bait me), he made
no excuses about not having the time to contact me before now (which
is good, since excuses ring hollow when coming from people who have
the time to fill up their forum with hundreds of posts in just a few
days). He also used his real name, so I retract my erroneous comment
(in the Hate Mail page) about how he didn't have the balls to do
so.

Unfortunately for those who were hoping for good
fireworks, he has already stated that he does not want to engage in
flamewars, and he has conceded that the Empire enjoys a massive
advantage over the Federation, so he wishes to debate only on smaller
issues such as per-unit combat tactics. This takes some of the fun
(well, a lot of the fun) out of it (no better way to deflate a
debate than to agree with most of what your opponent is saying), but
I hope the debate will still have some entertainment value for the
masses (by conceding the main points, he's tacitly acknowledging that
the board denizens' complaints about my site are mostly nitpicks, but
I wonder if the rest of them will realize that).

At this point, negotiations began. Gothmog made the negotiations
much more tedious than they had to be (near the end, I felt like I
was arguing with a goddamned corporate lawyer), but in the process, he
was forced to publicly acknowledge that the main points of my site are
all correct, so he changed the subject of our debate from Star Trek
versus Star Wars to some dry discussion of the philosophy of suspension
of disbelief. Even though I wanted to defend my site against critics
(funny how they all scurried away when I issued my challenge, much
like cockroaches reacting to the light), I'm perfectly willing to
debate Gothmog on this other subject.